


the one who lifted the drill

by sunabolitionist



Category: Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann
Genre: Character Death, Grieving, M/M, One-Sided Attraction, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:28:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26341888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunabolitionist/pseuds/sunabolitionist
Summary: Viral one-sided pining for Kamina after everything...Commission for my friend Jonas!
Relationships: Kamina/Viral (Gurren Lagann)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 9





	the one who lifted the drill

I have thought much about that failure, about him. My mind always snaps back to him nearly defeating me, stealing my helmet and placing it on his damned gunmen, him cutting me, him being there at seemingly every turn to foil me. Every night I think of him. I refuse to admit how much it hurts. 

I sat in my den, staring tiredly at the ceiling, wishing for a different thought, a different meandering want, something more certain than this aching to defeat him. I wanted to win. I wanted to win so badly that I didn’t appreciate him. 

Adiane struck me. 

_ It’s your fault Tylimph is dead.  _ And she was right. She was completely correct in that— I had failed— I needed to restore whatever honor I could, and if need be, I would die in his name. But now, that  _ he  _ has changed. I felt the snap of her tail against my face, already bandaged with lumps from previous bruises, with the sour, still bleeding scrapes from battles prior. I almost crumbled with my broken pride, my shallow, unwilling want to make what happened  _ into  _ something. 

I can grit my teeth all I want; there is a life that is out of my reach. Yes, no matter how long I attempted to regain my honor as a beastman, I would still be worthless in Lordgenome’s eyes. I would be worthless to all of them. But I did it anyway, I grit my teeth, I kept moving forward. I kept my eyes towards the ground to measure my enemies, but my head pointed at the sky in some pitiful hope. But it was just that— hope— that would do me in. 

I snuck out after Adiane after she left to regain her bruised pride. Pain is something I am well versed in, and perhaps this would have hurt less had I not been a boisterous fool— obsessed with striking down that Kamina, obsessed with making his life a living hell— even after snatching the general out of the way, the crushing noise of Gurren Lagann drilling through Dai-Gunkai struck utter terror into me. 

Please believe that the rubble is a terrible place to find yourself; a terrible place to find your superiors dead. All the while, I thought of him. I thought it was him. Perhaps the coldest, most abhorrent thing I imagined was that… this was an honor of sorts— I wished to best him, but there he was, defeating me again— I wondered if it would feel good to win, or if it was simply a strange obsession with his strength that made me content with losing to him. I wondered, in all resistance to my breeding, whether I could be his friend— whether he could be kind to me after all of this. Whether enemies are capable of reconciling and finding a new life. But this just made me more angry, it simply blinded me more. It sent me spiraling out of control, attempting to understand why exactly I felt so weak in his stead, and this  _ was  _ weakness. Wishing to befriend the enemy is the greatest weakness of all. I didn’t know him. I can never know him. But he made me weak and for that I am grateful. 

Even when the pain abated, even when I was ready to kill him, it wasn’t him. Simon’s voice echoed in my ears for days. His voice shot through me, straight across the battlefield, my head promptly fell to gaze upon the ground; upon my enemies. There was no hope for someone like me, not without Kamina. His death sat in my throat— for days after I could not speak. 

Even when I said I would kill Simon— I couldn’t do it. He was his, wasn’t he? He was his brother. He was his friend. It would be like killing the last remnant of him. I couldn’t bear killing that part of him— that last remaining sliver of hope that I could perhaps see Kamina’s face in Simon’s eyes. Though, I never really did— nor did I need to. 

In the Spiral King’s throne room— in my den after he imbued me with immortality— in the aftermath of the defeat of Lordgenome— I thought of Kamina. I thought of who he was, or, rather, who he could have been. I should have died many times; I presume the only reason I lived was to make sure I could ensure Kamina’s memory was cemented. And despite it all, I wanted him to be remembered. The one who bested me. The powerful man who carried himself unlike a king, but with a king’s honor. The one who lifted the drill. 

I spent all that time wandering; entrenched in loss. There was no pride left to be had.

The settlement was the only thing that made me feel worth my own skin; it was the only thing that made me feel closer to him, to Kamina. To see the people like him living there lives. There were so few deaths, but each one felt like a pike through my chest. I hated seeing humans die. Everything they did reminded me of him, no matter how menial, no matter how pointless. Perhaps, even the more pointless things struck the hardest— because he did a lot of pointless things to make himself seem strong, and it  _ always  _ worked. 

It was so easy not to care about defeat, not to care about the ability of my honor to be restored— I got over it. It hurt to, but I did. I could keep my eyes to the sky again, thanks to him. There was a pang of hope like a rumble of thunder. I wanted and wanted, hoped and hoped. 

Simon looked me in the eyes; he wasn’t like Kamina, and he didn’t need to be. But Kamina had believed in him, he told me. He believed in his ability to do what needed to be done, to be strong, to be smart. I believed in him too; who was I to disrespect Kamina’s wants? 

This was all his work, I realized. Kamina was in all of them, even the ones he didn’t know, especially the ones he knew from the start. He was a little fire behind their eyes. He was their hope, even though he hadn’t been alive for some time. Even if it was Simon they believed in— Simon was Kamina’s brother, and Simon was here because of Kamina. I wanted to have that flame. That silent, wanting hope that Kamina would have told me to believe in him that believes in me. 


End file.
